I can't wait to see the results Norma. I am kind of curious why you included sugar and malt powder , but I am guessing you will provide us with the answer tomorrow.

Jim,

I am an experimenter at heart and just like to see how different ingredients do or do not work together. I would like to start making Sicilian pies for market, so this formulation is just to see if a higher hydration dough with a lower protein flour will work. I have a lot of samples of dry malt, so I thought I would try them in a Sicilian pie formulation. Usually with some Sicilian pies I have made, I canít get the right bottom crust crunch in my deck oven. I am going to oil my steel pan with lard tomorrow to see what happens. Maybe someday I will make a decent enough Sicilian pie for market. I want to try and achieve a light and partially airy crust.

Norma,I cant wait to see the results. I am kind of curious about the better for breads and how it will hold up as well. I have used it several times in the past and had to lower my hydration by about 2% when compared with some of the other brands I have tried, KA and Wheat Montana. I am liking the idea of larding up the pan. If that does not provide some flavor I am not sure what will. Good Luck.

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Norma,I cant wait to see the results. I am kind of curious about the better for breads and how it will hold up as well. I have used it several times in the past and had to lower my hydration by about 2% when compared with some of the other brands I have tried, KA and Wheat Montana. I am liking the idea of larding up the pan. If that does not provide some flavor I am not sure what will. Good Luck.

Jim,

I had leftover Better for Bread flour and have used it in some higher hydration doughs before, but not quite this high. I had to do a few stretch and folds on the dough after I mixed it. I wasnít sure if I wanted to do more stretch and folds, but just let it be to see what happens.

I used regular manteca in a dough and to grease a pan before and the taste was great. This time I just am trying Goya manteca lard because I want to get that used up too.

Norma,One thing I thought of tonight for your future Sicilian experiments is that you may want to try two different dough formulas on each side of the pan. What I mean is, cut your dough formula in half and create a standard or generic dough on one side of the pan (what is referred to in experimental biology as a control) and your experimental dough on the other side. I personally found this method to be useful when creating the Buratto clone. I found that using this method saved me quite a bit of flour and gave me a chance to compare two or three different recipes side by side, all the while knowing my workflow, equipment, oven temp and any operator errors will equally effect my final products and not differ the outcome for the recipes. Anywho, just a thought.

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Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.

Norma,One thing I thought of tonight for your future Sicilian experiments is that you may want to try two different dough formulas on each side of the pan. What I mean is, cut your dough formula in half and create a standard or generic dough on one side of the pan (what is referred to in experimental biology as a control) and your experimental dough on the other side. I personally found this method to be useful when creating the Buratto clone. I found that using this method saved me quite a bit of flour and gave me a chance to compare two or three different recipes side by side, all the while knowing my workflow, equipment, oven temp and any operator errors will equally effect my final products and not differ the outcome for the recipes. Anywho, just a thought.

Jim,

That is a good idea to try two different dough formulas on each side of the pan. I might try that in the coming weeks. Usually when making an experimental dough I have many taste testers that try the final pizzas and give me their opinions on what they think. I would really love to make a Pizzarium style pie for market, but have too many problems with that high hydration dough for market.

I would like to be able to use a cheaper flour, mix it for a one day ferment and have it work out. I am only starting with a longer ferment to see what the difference in flavor might be. I know I probably will have to change the formulation different times. My 12Ēx17Ē steel pan isnít even seasoned yet, so I will try to do that at market today. I plan on letting the dough proof in the pan before baking.

The first Sicilian attempt went okay yesterday, but there sure is room for improvement. Number one, I should have know better to season the steel pan instead of just using lard to coat it. The edges of the pie wanted to stick to the pan. The crumb did have decent moistness and okay oven spring, but somehow the crumb seemed too heavy. I donít know if that is from using the dry malt or not. The taste of the crumb was good. The dough was left in the steel pan to proof for 2 hours. I used the method of applying the blend of cheeses first and then placing dollops of tomato sauce on, then used a squeezed bottle to apply more sauce. Steve did like this pizza and so did some of my taste testers. I liked it, but want to improve more. If anyone has any ideas of what to change let me know.